Dialogue for Peaceful Change (DPC) is the first global Oikosnet project and gained increasingly momentum in 2006/2007.

DPC is part of a global coalition dedicated to creating safe spaces to overcome division, through a structured process of mutual empowerment. The program is based on work in Corrymeela, Northern Ireland, and is applicable to conflicts, large and small - in communities, organizations, families, and between individuals.

In 2006 three further DPC trainings took place (in Northern Ireland and Ghana) and the first generation of eight DPC trainers was certified. For 2007, all six regions of Oikosnet have agreed to hold at least one DPC training in their region. A major EU grant will support this process, which develops growing dynamics under the joint leadership of Stichting OIKOS (Utrecht/NL), Vesper Society (San Francisco/US), and Tides Training (Corrymeela, Northern Ireland/UK) and the EAALCE. The objective for DPC – which understands itself as a contribution to the WCC’s Decade to Overcome Violence – is to roll out this methodology globally and create a self-sustaining global learning community of well-skilled facilitators and trainers that can assist in mediating conflicts worldwide.

In 2007 DPC facilitator training programmes were held at Tatmagouche Centre in Nova Scotia/Canada and in Victoria Falls/Zimbabwe. Meanwhile one hundred facilitators have received their DPC certificates and can start applying this very practical, skills-orientied methodology of mediative dialogue in their respctive home contexts.

In Europe DPC facilitator trainings in 2007 are planned in Valamo/Finland, Volos/Greece and Corrymeela/Northern Ireland.